Synergy Aircraft Project Unveils at EAA

In brief: The physical, full-scale model of the Synergy airplane unveiled at the CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium in Santa Rosa, California.

Vehicle in the news

Make/Model: Synergy
Manufacturer: Synergy Aircraft Project / John McGinnis

The word

The airplane, unveiled at the EAS 5 last week, is inventor John McGinnis' entry into the NASA/CAFE Green Flight Challenge scheduled for this July. The prize pot for that contest is $1.65 million.

The design of the aircraft is, as McGinnis describes it, "half sailplane-half fighter jet." Its name comes from the idea that the aircraft synergizes six proven aeronautical principles:

• Laminar flow
• Non-planar configuration
• Wake-immersed propulsion
• Open thermodynamic cycle
• Pressure thrust
• Optimum volumetric displacement waveform

The aircraft's shape produces extremely low induced drag and like the canard designs that inspired it, is incapable of unintentional stalls and cannot "spin" when stalling - proven in this case through computer simulation.

The aircraft is designed around the turbocharged, liquid-cooled, 200hp diesel DeltaHawk engine, which is undergoing FAA certification in Wisconsin.

And so ...

A very cool design with a lot of potential in aircraft of several energy sources.

Photo credits: Synergy / EAA